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Stuff That Got Left Over: Nukes · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
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Speaker 1: for tuning in, and shout out to our super producer
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Speaker 1: Max Adenda Williams Sele. This is speaking of selector. These
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Speaker 1: are some selects for us your nol I am Ben. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: we are doing something different. It's our first quote unquote
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Speaker 1: clip show of Matrosh goadl of Segues.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, we're kind of like uh cure, We're like DJs
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Speaker 2: on the BBC, you know, like playlist or something.
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Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah. And this is this is funny big
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Speaker 1: because backstage this brief explanation, Max Noel and I talked
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Speaker 1: about the different things that get left out of episodes
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Speaker 1: because you know, it is when you're deep in research,
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Speaker 1: you're a sponge. You gather all this stuff and sometimes
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Speaker 1: it doesn't make it in because of time or because
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Speaker 1: it's an interesting fact that may not fit the story.
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Speaker 1: So we're doing something kind of like, as Max pointed out,
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Speaker 1: kind of like Morty's mind blowers from the show Rick
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Speaker 1: and Morty or interdimensional Cable now that I think about it.
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Speaker 2: So speaking of the kind of stuff you see in
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Speaker 2: that Rick and Morty episode. Ben, I love the idea
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Speaker 2: of sponge gathering things. I'm just picturing a sort of
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Speaker 2: anthropomorphic sponge with weird long arms. It's just kind of
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Speaker 2: gathering things up in baskets.
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Speaker 1: Love it. Yes, so we are. That's what we are doing.
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Speaker 1: That's who we are today. We have a lot of
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Speaker 1: tangents and trivia and we just wanted to explore some
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Speaker 1: of these interesting ones that we couldn't let go of.
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Speaker 1: They didn't make it in the show. Although we are
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Speaker 1: that we have a fourth person here. We do. We
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Speaker 1: have our special guest, Alex Circa Alex, thank you for
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Speaker 1: coming on the show. Thanks for having me nice on air. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's like we're being observed. We guess one will go.
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Speaker 2: We've got the observation windows on the outside. Here people
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Speaker 2: lookie lose, and then we've got these lookie loose over here.
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Speaker 1: We've got the cameras. We've got a big television screen time.
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Speaker 1: We should just put someone on the screen, just like
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Speaker 1: a still image, very awkwardly stare at random person. I
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Speaker 1: would go, Christopher, They're just like nodding their head. They
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Speaker 1: like it. Or boring cam feed of all time. Put
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Speaker 1: on c Span put on the crazy compilation clips of
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Speaker 1: Sea Span anyway speaking and clips Uh no, maybe we
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Speaker 1: open with this one. A while back. We looked at
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Speaker 1: nuclear test sites. We looked at broken Arrows. Very interesting
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Speaker 1: and surprisingly terrifying. Well it's not surprising, it's a regular terrify.
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Speaker 1: Losing nukes is crazy. We wanted to explore nuclear test sites.
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Speaker 1: We didn't get a chance to do this in the episode. Folks,
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Speaker 1: It turns out there are some nuclear test sites you
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Speaker 1: can visit today.
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Speaker 2: Cool bring your own Geiger counter or maybe they even
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Speaker 2: issue them. I love the sound those things make, those
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Speaker 2: little click click clicks. I feel bad. I haven't seen
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Speaker 2: Oppenheimer yet. I did see the Barbie movie though, and
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Speaker 2: it was delightful. But yeah, Trinity, of course back where
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Speaker 2: it all began in Sikoro, New Mexico is obviously a
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Speaker 2: very important location in the film Oppenheimer about the creation
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Speaker 2: of the atomic bomb. On July sixteenth, nineteen forty five,
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Speaker 2: in New Mexico, Deep Deep, New Mexico, the age of
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Speaker 2: atom was birthed.
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Speaker 1: And this is weird, Okay, there are some caveats with
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Speaker 1: exploring this test site. The US military detonated a third
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Speaker 1: team pound klutonium contraption. It just annihilated things. It was
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Speaker 1: almost it was like biblical, a six hundred foot wide fireball.
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Speaker 1: Sand is turning into glass windows one hundred and twenty
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Speaker 1: miles away. They're just popping. And people didn't know about
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Speaker 1: the test. They were like, I should have bought I
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Speaker 1: shouldn't have gone cheap on the windows.
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Speaker 2: Exactly is this this You mentioned it as a contraption.
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Speaker 2: Was this the one that was referred to as the Gadgets?
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Speaker 1: Yes? Yeah, that was uh go go Gadget Apocalypse? Am
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Speaker 1: I right?
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Speaker 2: They didn't have a lot of time to work on
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Speaker 2: the name. They were focused on other stuff. But I
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Speaker 2: thingy yeah, yeah, the watch Man call it the do Dad.
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Speaker 2: Here's the deal. And I have a good friend who
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Speaker 2: lives in Atlanta, are Pal Steve Dixie. He has visited
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Speaker 2: this site and he had to plan ahead because here's
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Speaker 2: the big caveat the site of the Trinity detonation is
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Speaker 2: open to the public, but only one day out of
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Speaker 2: the year, really, the first Saturday of April. That's why
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Speaker 2: else and apparently it's worth the trip. Okay, what happens
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Speaker 2: to the rest of the Saturdays and other days?
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Speaker 1: I don't know. You know, like blocked off.
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Speaker 2: Or they're like, you know, shooters on towers to keep
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Speaker 2: you away.
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Speaker 1: Like what are we talking here? Why?
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Speaker 2: Why?
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Speaker 1: Why all the hush hush. It's super super exclusive. I
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Speaker 1: guess you know what, if we if what we have
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Speaker 1: learned about the US government is correct, it might just
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Speaker 1: be a budget thing. Maybe, so maybe they got like
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Speaker 1: they they made the budget for visitors and they didn't
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Speaker 1: remember to carry a digit, and so now they only
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Speaker 1: have the one day. Let's pause one moment. There's a
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Speaker 1: quick addendum here. It turns out that the Trinity Site
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Speaker 1: is actually open not just one day a year, but
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Speaker 1: two days per year, so you can go on the
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Speaker 1: first Saturday in April or the third Saturday in October,
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Speaker 1: which is coming up soon.
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Speaker 2: Well, another spot you can visit if you want to
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Speaker 2: see some nuclear craters is the Marshall Islands, where you
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Speaker 2: can visit some nuclear crater concrete domes. The US has
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Speaker 2: a long history that we've discussed multiple times, of using
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Speaker 2: remote island areas in order to blow things up and
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Speaker 2: to test weaponry, you know, because it's fine, it's out
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Speaker 2: of the way.
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Speaker 1: It was good in any to worry about the aftermath, right, sure, yeah,
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Speaker 1: you know what, it's so chill. We probably don't even
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Speaker 1: have to ask the people who live there. Yeah, they'll
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Speaker 1: be fine. They'll be fine with it. And if you
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Speaker 1: want to learn more, checkout stuff they once you know,
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Speaker 1: as episode on nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands. The
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Speaker 1: Marshall Islands were only one example. Islands and atolls in
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Speaker 1: the South Pacific were used in like over one hundred
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Speaker 1: times for nuclear test and there wasn't a real effort
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Speaker 1: to clean this up until the nineteen seventies. Tale as
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Speaker 1: old as time. It's always that lag.
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Speaker 2: It's like we just talked about with Nator and like
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Speaker 2: traffic safety, you know, people have been driving cars for
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Speaker 2: practically one hundred years of four people thought maybe we
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Speaker 2: should make sure people don't die as a result of
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Speaker 2: the things that we've let out into the world for
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Speaker 2: money and or you know, global supremacy.
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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, nuclear Yeah, And there's there's a weird story
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Speaker 1: with that one too, because this crater that we're talking about,
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Speaker 1: the crater was created in a nuclear test code named Cactus.
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Speaker 1: And I feel like that's just very bad security because
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Speaker 1: if people are spying on you, right, they're gonna ask
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Speaker 1: why are you talking about a cactus in the South Pacific.
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Speaker 2: Right, you think it would be like palm tree or something. Yeah, yeah, perhaps.
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Speaker 1: Raft or maybe maybe just the mango. Maybe the phrase
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Speaker 1: nothing sketchy. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I like Operation Mango. I feel like there should be
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Speaker 2: an Operation Mango. I'm sure there is that probably is? Yeah,
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Speaker 2: or is that? What is that what we just call
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Speaker 2: it when we hang out with our pale mangesh Operation Mango.
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Speaker 2: I'm gonna start saying that.
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Speaker 1: I love that. So three years.
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Speaker 2: Later, and after expend in the neighborhood of a quarter
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Speaker 2: of a billion dollars, they just.
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Speaker 1: Built a dome over it. Oh nice, a big, giant
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Speaker 1: concrete dome. So it's kind of it's the geopolitical version
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Speaker 1: of throwing all your stuff in the closet when company
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Speaker 1: comes over. Yeah.
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Speaker 2: I mean it takes a little more planning and effort
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Speaker 2: than that I would argue, but essentially you're not far off.
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Speaker 2: We are talking about a foot and a half thick
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Speaker 2: concrete dome measuring around one hundred thousand square feet built
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Speaker 2: over the nuclear crater with signage, of course, trying to
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Speaker 2: ward people off, but it is possible to get to there.
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Speaker 2: You can actually land. I think on run It Island
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Speaker 2: and then head over to the old Cactus Dome, the
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Speaker 2: nuclear Sarcophagus. It's also called yeah, which I think is
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Speaker 2: a is a more appropriate name than just concrete dome.
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Speaker 1: Also to jump in.
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Speaker 3: There are some eight videos out there of people actually
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Speaker 3: going to the concrete doun, like you know, reporters and stuff.
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Speaker 3: It's it's pretty terrifying and it really makes you hate
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Speaker 3: what the United States have done here.
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Speaker 1: So question, I mean, were they building this like so
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Speaker 1: people wouldn't fall in or is there actually still like
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Speaker 1: you know, radioactivity.
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Speaker 3: Oh, there is full blown radio Ka's and the concept
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Speaker 3: of it is to keep all that in there. They
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Speaker 3: basically because they blew up like Bikini Island and stuff
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Speaker 3: like that, they took all that dirt and they dumped
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Speaker 3: into this like crater and they built concrete around it
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Speaker 3: and they did a really bad job.
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Speaker 1: Let's the same yeah. Yeah, And this was also part
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Speaker 1: of something called Operation Ivy or it's a consequence. It's
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Speaker 1: a great band. Yeah, it is a great band. That's
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Speaker 1: what we're bringing them up. And also, oh, we forgot,
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Speaker 1: we forgot because we have company over. We've got to
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Speaker 1: do the max with the fact sound.
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Speaker 2: Cue yeah, but she won't be able to hear it
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Speaker 2: in real time. Okay, Alex, you're just gonna is really good.
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Speaker 1: I can get in real time. Did you sign it
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Speaker 1: to a button like a real disc jockey here? He
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Speaker 1: had to take off his headphones. I can hear you. No,
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Speaker 1: it's it's just gonna take a second. I gotta find
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Speaker 1: it in dropbox. Is that sneaking in the phone and
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Speaker 1: he's fallen? Know it's just for you? Right? It makes
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Speaker 1: my heart saying that's our palm Matt Frederick, Alex, what
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Speaker 1: do you think? I mean? That was amazing.
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Speaker 2: It's pretty good. We can claim no credit for it.
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Speaker 2: That's why we're able to really give it. Give it props. No,
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Speaker 2: did you hear the one I made for Lauren? No?
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Speaker 1: No, I didn't.
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Speaker 3: Who's that guess hosting the show?
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Speaker 1: Lauren? And she's on this podcast? Hey Lauren? Sorry, that
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Speaker 1: was what got me instead.
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Speaker 3: Yeah, I'll send it to you later. We played on
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Speaker 3: the show once before. I think that's one too many
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Speaker 3: times already.
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Speaker 1: Okay, it's a little more of a beat poet vibe.
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Speaker 1: I love that. Yeah, I mean I gave it my
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Speaker 1: best shot.
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Speaker 2: Well, your efforts were much appreciated. And you know, speaking
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Speaker 2: of like covering stuff up, that's that is bad that
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Speaker 2: people should not venture near, you know. I think I
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Speaker 2: mentioned before in the past, in a previous life, I
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Speaker 2: covered some nuclear waste dumping sites, you know that are
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Speaker 2: very hilariously referred to as superfund sites. I originally thought
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Speaker 2: that they were saying super fun sites, you know, but
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Speaker 2: that's not what they're They're not that much fun at all.
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Speaker 2: But in Augusta, where I did some work for public
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Speaker 2: radio and that was kind of my little area.
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Speaker 1: Uh, there's a place called the Savannah.
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Speaker 2: River Site that is actually a storage site for nuclear
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Speaker 2: waste from nuclear weapons and for like decommissioned nuclear weapons.
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Speaker 2: And they monitor that area by like tagging wildlife and
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Speaker 2: like kind of catching and really them and then measuring
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Speaker 2: them with Geiger counters. And a lot of these these
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Speaker 2: sites are literally just pits in the ground or they
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Speaker 2: dumped a lot of this waste.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, it's unfortunately not surprising. And when we when we
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Speaker 1: look at the South Pacific, when we look at places
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Speaker 1: like Enawa, tak and Bikini both A toolls, what we
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Speaker 1: see is that they had to be evacuated. There were
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Speaker 1: dozens and dozens and dozens of tests, nuclear tests that
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Speaker 1: absolutely rock these islands. The consequences continue today, even though
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Speaker 1: these atolls have been partially resettled. From nineteen seventy seven
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Speaker 1: to nineteen eighty, the US had a two hundred million
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Speaker 1: dollar nuclear cleanup and rehab program for Enawa Talk in particular,
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Speaker 1: and people had to live in exile for thirty three
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Speaker 1: years before they could move back to their land. And
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Speaker 1: again they didn't get any say so on this nuclear testing,
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Speaker 1: and likely, you know, if anything, symbolic compensation, certainly not
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Speaker 1: adequate compensation. You know. Again, for more details, check out
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Speaker 1: our stuff. They want you a new episode on nuclear
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Speaker 1: testing the Marshall Islands. Let's travel to a couple of
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Speaker 1: places before we come back home to the US. Let's
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Speaker 1: go to the Soviet Union. Let's go to Kazakhstan. Do
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Speaker 1: you ever feel that way? Do you ever just wake
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Speaker 1: up and you're like, let's go to kasaicstr just s
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Speaker 1: pop over to Kazakhstan.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, So, this of course is putting us in the
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Speaker 2: shoes of the other major nuclear power during the Cold War,
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Speaker 2: the Soviet Union. And this a place called semi Politensk
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Speaker 2: was the Soviet Union's main test site, the Polygon, which
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Speaker 2: is what it was referred to, which is located in
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Speaker 2: the former Soviet Union. It was a closed city near Semipalatensk.
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Speaker 1: I think I'm saying that right.
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Speaker 2: I believe today they refer to just as Semi, which
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Speaker 2: I fully stand by.
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Speaker 1: I wish I had said it that way from the start.
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Speaker 1: You know, you're probably not alone in that, including the
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Speaker 1: people who live there. We are, of course not native
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Speaker 1: Russian speakers.
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Speaker 2: Right, forgive us of any transgressions in the pronunciation department.
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Speaker 1: What we need to know about this place is that
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Speaker 1: between nineteen forty nine and nineteen eighty nine, over forty years,
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Speaker 1: there were more than four hundred and fifty nuclear tests
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Speaker 1: just in this place. Three hundred and forty were underground.
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Speaker 1: There were one hundred and sixteen explosions in the atmosphere.
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Speaker 1: The equivalent of this, if you add it all up,
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Speaker 1: this is like blowing up two thousand, five hundred Hiroshima bombs.
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Speaker 1: So there are a lot of craters in the area.
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Speaker 1: It's like a lunar surface the moon man. Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: you know another.
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Speaker 2: Thing that the Soviet Union former Civiet Union has a
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Speaker 2: reputation for is not being too transparent with their communication
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Speaker 2: to their citizenry. You know, as we know in the
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Speaker 2: Chernobyl crisis, the nuclear meltdown, information was contained, you know,
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Speaker 2: to an alarming degree, even when it became clear that
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Speaker 2: there would be nuclear fallout that could affect surrounding areas.
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Speaker 1: Same deal here, absolutely. Yeah, we know that, we know
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Speaker 1: that they were We know that the Soviet Union was
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Speaker 1: aware of what it was doing. But it's the Cold War,
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Speaker 1: so they were saying they were making the greater good argument.
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Speaker 1: And as a result of this greater good, eighteen thousand
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Speaker 1: square kilometers, well more than eighteen thousand square kilometers are
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Speaker 1: heavily contaminated. Over a million people have some serious health
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Speaker 1: problems as a result of this. And it's kind of
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Speaker 1: like that town where they just mine as bestos. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: it's called asbestos, right. People just live in the Polygon
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Speaker 1: area in this former test site.
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Speaker 2: And as we've talked about it, I think we talked
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Speaker 2: about it with Jake Hanrahan on stuff that I want
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Speaker 2: you to know a lot of the scientists that work,
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Speaker 2: you know that are members of this society.
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Speaker 1: They are kind of.
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Speaker 2: Under the thumb in many ways of the government in
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Speaker 2: terms of like what they say, is allowable levels of
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Speaker 2: this kind of contamination. And as we know, even here
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Speaker 2: in the States, where scientists are arguably a little more
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Speaker 2: free to speak their minds, yeah, arguably, it's still kind
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Speaker 2: of hard to tie health issues specifically to something even
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Speaker 2: as alarming as this level of contamination, right, causality and all.
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Speaker 1: That good stuff in christ Yeah, And just like the
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Speaker 1: Ralph Nader consumer movement thing, it's a real David and
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Speaker 1: Goliath situation. There's another there's a returning guest from stuff
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Speaker 1: they don't want you to know that shows up in
16:43
Speaker 1: our next example, also Soviet Union. This one is in
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Speaker 1: Novaya Zemla, Russia. It's the biggest bomb ever exploded, the
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Speaker 1: sar Bumba. That's a great name for a big bomb.
16:56
Speaker 1: That's a great name for like a Davashka Beirut type bad.
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Speaker 2: Yeah, or it could be like an LCD sound system
17:03
Speaker 2: type in like a cool kind of dance punk type
17:06
Speaker 2: in I'm down with that sar bomba. I'm putting that
17:08
Speaker 2: in my back pocket for my next disco project. But yeah,
17:12
Speaker 2: this is the bde bomb. And just to quote a
17:16
Speaker 2: fabulous article from Atlas Oscura, exiety is thinking they do
17:18
Speaker 2: is such a good job at turning a phrase here,
17:21
Speaker 2: who's the who's the author been?
17:23
Speaker 1: There's not an author in this one.
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Speaker 2: That's jack because sometimes they just do to editorial. At
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Speaker 2: first glance, the barren landscape of Navoya Zemlia Russian for
17:30
Speaker 2: new Land might not seem like the sort of place
17:32
Speaker 2: where anything interesting has ever happened. Wow, but I know
17:35
Speaker 2: re hatless obscure. It needs some coffee, hot take. But
17:38
Speaker 2: it's remote location and small population meant that it was
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Speaker 2: designated as a nuclear test site in nineteen fifty four,
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Speaker 2: and over the next thirty five years is the location
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Speaker 2: of two hundred and twenty four nuclear detonations, including the
17:50
Speaker 2: world's large nuclear explosion.
17:52
Speaker 1: Zar Bomba Bombo Bombo Boombo. The bomba is also like
17:56
Speaker 1: a dance right like.
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Speaker 2: Dropped by the Soviet Union in nineteen sixty one over
18:02
Speaker 2: at Navoya Zemlia Island. Most of the island still remains
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Speaker 2: a military based this day, although cruise ships often frequent
18:08
Speaker 2: the southern part of the archipelago, which is a fun
18:11
Speaker 2: word to say, archipelago, not cruise ship.
18:14
Speaker 1: I love I love an archipelago, man, I like saying archapella.
18:17
Speaker 2: Oh see, I only do arch but I think maybe
18:19
Speaker 2: that's wrong, but that's just the way my mouth says it.
18:21
Speaker 1: I like that word because it feels like you're juggling
18:24
Speaker 1: with your mouth.
18:26
Speaker 3: So what you guys are saying is Ben is an architect,
18:29
Speaker 3: while Noel you're an arch villain.
18:31
Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah, archie nemesis. Uh oh, Jonathan's going to
18:36
Speaker 1: be mad. No, we don't. We don't have two nemeses
18:38
Speaker 1: in the budget.
18:38
Speaker 2: I also have fallen arches, which is why I'm excluded
18:41
Speaker 2: from military service, and bone spurs likely story but ansariasis yeah,
18:47
Speaker 2: and malays, Yeah, totally general malays.
18:50
Speaker 1: Let's not forget that one. I wonder birds well, who
18:53
Speaker 1: go to war with birds? Oh? God? If that ever happens,
18:55
Speaker 1: I'm out. I want to do. I do want to do, dude,
18:59
Speaker 1: I do want to do a episode in the future
19:02
Speaker 1: on obscure historical maladies. I love reading things like that
19:07
Speaker 1: when they say, unfortunately, young Winnifred felled to the brain fevers. Yes, indeed, speaking.
19:12
Speaker 2: Of bird wars, though by the way, there what there was?
19:14
Speaker 2: Did we just mean on the EMU wars in Australia? Yeah, yeah,
19:17
Speaker 2: I think we did. EMUs are terrifying man, they're dinosaur
19:20
Speaker 2: clause could disemboweu you like a raptor in two point five.
19:24
Speaker 2: You'd be holding your guts like Dennis Nedrie in the
19:26
Speaker 2: book version h. Cassawries as well.
19:29
Speaker 1: Those are the worst ones. Those are even worse. I
19:31
Speaker 1: don't know why. I know they're more dangerous, but shoe
19:34
Speaker 1: bills freak me out. Have you ever heard the sound
19:37
Speaker 1: they make? I know that they're horrible, horrible nightmare faces
19:40
Speaker 1: and beaks. They look like they're always scheming. It's awful.
19:43
Speaker 1: They're always like really narrowed eyes. Yeah, they're rough man,
19:46
Speaker 1: not cool. That's what the cashuarty though, really does disembowel
19:49
Speaker 1: its prey. It will one hundred percent. Yeah, it is
19:52
Speaker 1: a swoop. It is an f around and foul out
19:58
Speaker 1: f o w L. So anyway, Atomic Survival Town, that's
20:03
Speaker 1: the name of real place we're gonna end this one here?
20:06
Speaker 1: Is this like an amusement park? Ya?
20:08
Speaker 2: Can I go here and they issue you like a
20:11
Speaker 2: cool like you know, like a gas mask or like whatever, like.
20:13
Speaker 1: A fallout suit. Yeah, yeah, has bad suit or something
20:16
Speaker 1: that sounds like fun. I want to go to Atomic
20:18
Speaker 1: Survival Town. It sounds like ghost town.
20:20
Speaker 2: In the sky or like one of those like you know,
20:22
Speaker 2: kind of front Frontier type, you know, attractions.
20:26
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is probably one of the better known sits
20:29
Speaker 1: on our list. Going back to Atlas Obscura in nineteen
20:33
Speaker 1: fifty five, there were fourteen different test explosions at Yuko
20:38
Speaker 1: Flat and this was part of something called Operation Tea Cup,
20:41
Speaker 1: which sounds so dainty. I yeah, pinky up. You know,
20:45
Speaker 1: I always want decorum. I always wanted the job of
20:48
Speaker 1: being the person gets to pick those names. I feel
20:50
Speaker 1: like craation mango for me all day. Yeah, we had
20:52
Speaker 1: some good ones.
20:53
Speaker 3: We had Operation Cottage, Operation land Crab what was that
20:56
Speaker 3: two weeks ago?
20:56
Speaker 1: Mm hmm yeah, yeah, yeah, And so you should be
21:00
Speaker 1: in charge of naming more of these top secret government operations.
21:05
Speaker 1: We'll write the email.
21:06
Speaker 2: Later, Operation Ground and find Out or f Around and
21:10
Speaker 2: foul Out, the Cassaway deployment.
21:13
Speaker 1: So yes. So the most memorable parts of these tests
21:18
Speaker 1: were the reasons called Atomic Survival Town is because they
21:21
Speaker 1: built a dummy town. Cool sort of like when the
21:24
Speaker 1: Allies built that fake Paris. Just so yeah, which is
21:28
Speaker 1: an episode that's sort of like what is it the
21:31
Speaker 1: Mandala effect. We're like we swear we did this episode
21:34
Speaker 1: or did we just hang out and talk about it.
21:36
Speaker 1: I think we had a brief for this and we
21:39
Speaker 1: in our minds totally did it, but we obviously didn't
21:42
Speaker 1: do it, or it's been lost to time and or
21:45
Speaker 1: are publishing apparatus.
21:46
Speaker 2: Because we're saving it for our pal, Casey Pegrick. That's right,
21:49
Speaker 2: because he's our resident Francophone. Yes, franc Fi very much
21:54
Speaker 2: is francopheliac. No, that makes it sound weird, So yeah,
21:59
Speaker 2: he is. He is definitely our francophone friend. And for
22:03
Speaker 2: folks who have asked, I want to take a quick
22:05
Speaker 2: aside here, Casey is still very much a big part
22:09
Speaker 2: of the show. We are all friends, we hang out.
22:13
Speaker 2: Casey is just a very busy guy. He makes a
22:16
Speaker 2: lot of other shows, but he says hello, and we're
22:19
Speaker 2: going to have him on one day for the Paris
22:23
Speaker 2: episode that we can't remember recording.
22:26
Speaker 1: But to get back to the topic it hand.
22:28
Speaker 2: Here Atomic Survival Town in Nevada a series of fourteen
22:31
Speaker 2: nuclear test sites that were a part of Operation Teacup.
22:35
Speaker 2: As he said, the most memorable part of this operation
22:39
Speaker 2: was a purpose built town with homes and other townly
22:44
Speaker 2: structures built at varying distances from the blast to just
22:48
Speaker 2: see f around and find out see how these structures
22:52
Speaker 2: would be affected. This, one could argue, is a thoughtful
22:56
Speaker 2: operation that does take the human collateral into.
23:00
Speaker 1: And that's the creepiest part. You're right, it is a
23:03
Speaker 1: better plan than many of the other ones. It's also
23:06
Speaker 1: very Twilight Zone because they didn't just make fake buildings
23:10
Speaker 1: and a fake town. They populated it with fake people. Oh,
23:14
Speaker 1: realistic looking mannequin families, departly dressed, No doubt. I don't
23:25
Speaker 1: like being around mannequins. Yeah.
23:27
Speaker 2: It's also like anytime there's a creepy basement or a
23:30
Speaker 2: creepy addict, there's a mannequin. There's always a mannequin with
23:32
Speaker 2: no arms.
23:33
Speaker 1: Just hanging out. Where did they come from? I feel
23:35
Speaker 1: like they're judging I.
23:36
Speaker 2: Well, I'm taking of the ones with no head and
23:38
Speaker 2: no arms, you know, like a dressmaker's dummy or whatever.
23:40
Speaker 2: But I think it's just every horror house had someone
23:44
Speaker 2: that was trying needle work, you know, or making their
23:46
Speaker 2: own clothes and then just kind of gave up and
23:47
Speaker 2: then the thing goes in the attic.
23:49
Speaker 1: I mean once it's such a sunk cost fallacy. Once
23:51
Speaker 1: you have a mannequin, what are you gonna do? Throw
23:53
Speaker 1: it away? Weird? Yeah, you put it in the weirdest
23:57
Speaker 1: room in your house. You guys know, My grandfather when
24:00
Speaker 1: it was alive, was a sculptor, and so he had
24:02
Speaker 1: mannequins and they were in the part of the garage
24:06
Speaker 1: that people didn't go to.
24:07
Speaker 2: That way, when the Scooby Doo gang comes a call
24:09
Speaker 2: and you give them a good fright.
24:11
Speaker 1: Yeah sure, and then give them, you know, a constellation mannequin.
24:14
Speaker 1: He didn't solve the murder, but here's here's a body. Yeah. Anyway,
24:17
Speaker 1: So this survivement Caboostia, yeah yeah, again the needlework. This
24:22
Speaker 1: survival town also sometimes called Doomtown, that had these folks
24:26
Speaker 1: also good band name, yeah yeah, also had these folks
24:30
Speaker 1: going about their day to day routines, you know, And
24:33
Speaker 1: they did some research. They said, where would these people
24:36
Speaker 1: be at this point, at this time of day when
24:39
Speaker 1: this bomb detonates. What happens when a bomb explodes over
24:43
Speaker 1: a real town. So this was definitely worthwhile research. But folks,
24:47
Speaker 1: look up the pictures if you if you can't tell
24:50
Speaker 1: how creeped out we are by talking about this. Just
24:53
Speaker 1: go ahead and ruin your afternoon. Total Spooksville one hundred
24:57
Speaker 1: percent spooky Town, and you know what happened just now, Noel, Max, Alex, Hey,
25:04
Speaker 1: thanks for hanging out. I think we're gonna have to
25:07
Speaker 1: make this just the nuclear Bits episode. I know it's
25:09
Speaker 1: a little bit short, but we have this long list
25:13
Speaker 1: of lost bits. We might have to go like category
25:16
Speaker 1: by category. This one is deemed.
25:18
Speaker 2: It felt that way, it felt right and natural. Also,
25:20
Speaker 2: we got a holiday coming up, so you know, we'll
25:22
Speaker 2: just give us a break, y'all.
25:24
Speaker 1: Come on, come on. We're people to It's Labor Day.
25:26
Speaker 1: Podcasters are people to It's Labor Day, and you can
25:29
Speaker 1: celebrate it even if you're not currently pregnant. Is that right?
25:32
Speaker 1: Is that the one where you're not supposed to wear
25:33
Speaker 1: white after it or you do wear white after it?
25:35
Speaker 1: Or it's one don't you don't why? I don't understand.
25:39
Speaker 1: And that's a tail for another day. Yeah, we should
25:44
Speaker 1: also get into the history of the Labor Day movement,
25:48
Speaker 1: right since we just did a Nator episode representing consumers,
25:54
Speaker 1: and I think when we do that, when we can,
25:57
Speaker 1: maybe we can save the wearing white reveal. What can
26:00
Speaker 1: I just do it? Now I've already got it up
26:02
Speaker 1: on the screen. It's just I think we should this
26:04
Speaker 1: obviously shouldn't be a thing. This is correct.
26:07
Speaker 2: The holiday, originally in the eighteen eighties, was the official
26:10
Speaker 2: end of the summer and the start of the fall.
26:13
Speaker 2: The quote unquote rule you cannot wear white after Labor
26:15
Speaker 2: Day spans back to the late nineteenth century and was
26:18
Speaker 2: reportedly invented by an elite group to use fashion to
26:20
Speaker 2: separate those with and without money. Booo, not in the
26:24
Speaker 2: spirit of the labor movement at all.
26:26
Speaker 1: I like wear white. I like the idea. Well. As
26:29
Speaker 1: a color blind person, I'm kind of restricted to great white.
26:33
Speaker 1: You got your white? Oh nice, that's gonna last at
26:35
Speaker 1: least a couple of weeks. Fight the system. Also, whenever
26:39
Speaker 1: I think of wearing white after Labor Day, I am
26:41
Speaker 1: reminded of one very amazing film, Serial Mom. Do you
26:47
Speaker 1: guys remember Serial Mom.
26:48
Speaker 2: I know she murdered people based on them not having
26:52
Speaker 2: you know, white manners.
26:54
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she killed people. She killed someone for wearing
26:58
Speaker 1: white shoes after Labor Day. That's right, that's the that's funny.
27:00
Speaker 1: And I think that's a John Waters movie. That's yeah.
27:02
Speaker 2: A lot of people don't realize that, oh that tracks
27:04
Speaker 2: tracks Yeah, and it holds up. It's it's pretty funny.
27:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't seen in years.
27:09
Speaker 2: I just remember thinking it was probably it felt like
27:13
Speaker 2: his more accessible John Waters movie, considering that some of
27:16
Speaker 2: his early stuff involves like eating poop and stuff like.
27:19
Speaker 1: Yeah, corporate, that's right? Is that the word? So good?
27:22
Speaker 1: With these words?
27:23
Speaker 3: A guys to jump in here, because you know, since
27:25
Speaker 3: we're you know, just gonna talk about nukes today, I
27:28
Speaker 3: got one more I wanted to throw in there. This
27:29
Speaker 3: is not in the sheet secret careful. We're talking about
27:33
Speaker 3: Bikini Atoll, which is also part of uh of the
27:37
Speaker 3: Marshall Islands. This is the one they basically blew up.
27:39
Speaker 3: But funny enough, this is the origin story for Godzilla.
27:45
Speaker 1: That's right, that's right, Yeah, there was.
27:48
Speaker 3: There were some people who were safely evacuated. I'm doing
27:50
Speaker 3: strong air quotes across the glass to y'all. I don't
27:53
Speaker 3: know if you'll see them, but they just saw this
27:55
Speaker 3: giant explosion. And then there was this conspiracy theory that
27:59
Speaker 3: the explosion and all, you know, all the dirt everything
28:01
Speaker 3: rising up was a monster coming from the sea, which
28:04
Speaker 3: is where the creation myth of Godzilla came from what
28:08
Speaker 3: all actual do they just blew up an island in
28:10
Speaker 3: a country in the middle of the ocean. I think
28:12
Speaker 3: we talked about this many times that yet just have this,
28:16
Speaker 3: you know, this weird kind of fed up kink of
28:19
Speaker 3: just going to the ocean and just blowing up these
28:21
Speaker 3: beautiful islands.
28:21
Speaker 1: They called it manifest destinies.
28:24
Speaker 2: And Godzilla is almost this this this personification of like
28:28
Speaker 2: retribution for trying to play god Sure, you know, like
28:31
Speaker 2: it comes for your cities.
28:32
Speaker 1: You know, your your modern uh you.
28:35
Speaker 2: Know, meccas or whatever, and and Godzilla doesn't care.
28:38
Speaker 1: Let's do the orgins of Godzilla too.
28:41
Speaker 2: There's so much symbolism we're talking about that kind of
28:45
Speaker 2: stuff and that kind of genre. And I'm sure, Ben,
28:47
Speaker 2: I'm pretty positive you've seen this. There is a film
28:50
Speaker 2: by Bung June Ho called The Host, which is a
28:53
Speaker 2: very cool modern kind of Godzilla. It's not a giant creature,
28:58
Speaker 2: which I like, which I think, if you know, if
28:59
Speaker 2: you want a modern giant creature film, I still think Cloverfield,
29:02
Speaker 2: the original one is quite quite good. But The Host
29:05
Speaker 2: is it doesn't even bother with the backstory too much.
29:08
Speaker 2: It just basically starts with a bunch of scientists messing
29:11
Speaker 2: with chemicals, and then there's a monster and then that's
29:13
Speaker 2: the movie.
29:14
Speaker 1: And it's it's Korean Korean.
29:16
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's it's it's very much a character study,
29:19
Speaker 2: and all of these characters kind of end up being
29:21
Speaker 2: these archetypes. And there's like one who's like an Olympic archer,
29:25
Speaker 2: and of course some archery comes into play, but the
29:28
Speaker 2: c G I really holds up. There's the first kind
29:31
Speaker 2: of monster attack scene is like on a lake side
29:34
Speaker 2: kind of and it is really really good.
29:37
Speaker 1: Also, I was curious about this. I know, I'm always
29:42
Speaker 1: proposing adventures and you guys aren't always into them. Are
29:45
Speaker 1: you talking about not doing that? Not doing that? That's that?
29:51
Speaker 1: That was a bait. That wasn't fair, you know, I
29:53
Speaker 1: just don't. I've got a heights thing, man.
29:55
Speaker 2: You can visit here's who talk about. Yeah, no, did
30:00
Speaker 2: an entire episode about this. You don't get to know
30:02
Speaker 2: what is life if not to be lived?
30:04
Speaker 1: I bet I like I want my life to be longer.
30:07
Speaker 1: Hot air balloons are just death traps. So you're saying,
30:10
Speaker 1: especially some mob might come hollo think of them as
30:14
Speaker 1: freedom traps. Yeah, or or or how about this, because
30:18
Speaker 1: you want to fly like a bird man I am.
30:23
Speaker 1: How about this, guys, you don't have to go in
30:25
Speaker 1: the hot air balloon. You know. I'm working on giving
30:26
Speaker 1: my pilot license for a real playing no offense to
30:29
Speaker 1: hot air balloon nuts balloonis but uh, but we can
30:34
Speaker 1: once the war ends, and we all hope the war ends,
30:37
Speaker 1: there's a week war. We could travel to Chernobyl. The
30:40
Speaker 1: war with Eurasia. We've always been a war with East
30:43
Speaker 1: Asian I.
30:44
Speaker 3: Have a better idea.
30:45
Speaker 1: What do you think of hot air balloons? I can
30:47
Speaker 1: confirm I've been on one before.
30:49
Speaker 2: Cool, you're the bravest one amongst us, and yeah, good,
30:52
Speaker 2: good job.
30:52
Speaker 1: I would do like.
30:53
Speaker 2: I also am not a huge fan of open air
30:56
Speaker 2: high roller coasters. They freak like the Goliath flags.
31:00
Speaker 1: Yeah.
31:00
Speaker 2: I go through these periods where I'll get over a
31:03
Speaker 2: fear and do it for a while, and then the
31:05
Speaker 2: fear returns and then I'll no longer do it.
31:07
Speaker 1: That's not my claustrophobia? Is it? Waxes in Waynes? All right? Yeah? Well,
31:12
Speaker 1: how is your what would the word be radiophobia? Your
31:17
Speaker 1: fear of radiation? Chernobyl has some amazing wildlife. When the
31:21
Speaker 1: war in Ukraine ends, I think it would be really
31:23
Speaker 1: cool to go there.
31:24
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's like become sort of this weird wildlife
31:28
Speaker 2: refuge like them.
31:30
Speaker 1: That's right. Remind me what Gorky Park is been.
31:34
Speaker 2: There's a song by the Scorpions called the Winds of Change,
31:38
Speaker 2: and there was an excellent podcast about how that was,
31:41
Speaker 2: like theoretically was meant to be, Like it was like
31:44
Speaker 2: a sleeper kind of like government implant to like create
31:48
Speaker 2: this sense of like you know, Russia, Russian kind of
31:52
Speaker 2: unity or something like that.
31:53
Speaker 1: There's a there's a park in Moscow.
31:55
Speaker 2: Yeah, but there's park, but the lyric is like something
31:58
Speaker 2: like down in Gorky Park and it's you know, the
32:01
Speaker 2: winds of Change.
32:02
Speaker 1: Ah. Yes, So they're probably there is funding from the
32:07
Speaker 1: FBI historically that goes into those sorts of hearts and minds,
32:11
Speaker 1: war of entertainment. So it might be something like that.
32:14
Speaker 2: That they never prove it unequivocally I believe in the podcast,
32:16
Speaker 2: but it is something that the lyric is. I follow
32:18
Speaker 2: the Muskva down to Gorky Park listening to the wind
32:21
Speaker 2: of Change an August summer night. Soldiers passing by listening
32:25
Speaker 2: to the Winds of Change. It's weird because the Scorpions
32:28
Speaker 2: were a German band, and it's just it's a really
32:31
Speaker 2: interesting podcast.
32:32
Speaker 1: What year was that song? This song came out in
32:35
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety Okay, that tracks for me, you know why
32:38
Speaker 1: because the Berlin Wall fell in nineteen eighty nine. That's right.
32:42
Speaker 2: So there's an article in the Guardian Winds of Change.
32:45
Speaker 2: Did the CIA write the Cold War's biggest anthem, Scorpions
32:49
Speaker 2: power ballad was the sound of the Iron curtains fall?
32:51
Speaker 2: But a new podcast explores rumors that it was propaganda.
32:54
Speaker 1: Nice and we're going to call it a day there.
32:58
Speaker 1: We can't wait to explore more of the things we
33:01
Speaker 1: thought we lost. Congratulations Max, Noel, Alex, it's our first
33:07
Speaker 1: clip show. Thank you guys for hanging out. Thanks our
33:11
Speaker 1: research associate, Max Williams, H Noel, thank you to you.
33:14
Speaker 1: Thank you to the quist, our own Cold War nemesis,
33:18
Speaker 1: H and Alex Williams.
33:21
Speaker 2: Who can goose maeah this bang and bop that you're
33:23
Speaker 2: hearing right betwixt your very hate right the CIA guys.
33:27
Speaker 1: Question question, question for you.
33:28
Speaker 3: So if the biggest Russian nuke was called the tsar Bamba.
33:32
Speaker 1: What would Strickland's name be if he was a nuke?
33:37
Speaker 1: It was Tarbalda. Ouch. Oh that's so mean. I mean,
33:42
Speaker 1: isn't that what we were going for? But he said
33:44
Speaker 1: he doesn't like called chrome dome and things like that.
33:47
Speaker 1: Yeahar Balda is a little more innocuous. Tom. He was
33:50
Speaker 1: on that episode, wasn't he He was on that episode. Well,
33:53
Speaker 1: that one's for you, Stric. Hope you are well. I
33:56
Speaker 1: can't wait for you to join us again soon on air.
34:01
Speaker 1: Pal Jonathan does have a lot of cool things he
34:04
Speaker 1: is cooking up, and maybe maybe if we can have
34:06
Speaker 1: a bit of an amnesty on air, he'll tell us
34:08
Speaker 1: about them. I'm sure we can do an armistice. We'll
34:12
Speaker 1: see you next time, folks.
34:20
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
34:23
Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.